Nate Silver's midterms election forecast shifted slightly toward Republicans after he removed a series of fake polls that he said had been roughly one point more favorable to Democrats than the broader consensus. The famed polling analyst said the biggest change came in Michigan, where Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed's margin fell from 3.6 points to three points. Silver noted that this movement also reflected the addition of a Marist poll to the model that showed El-Sayed two points ahead.
"Overall, our forecast is little changed, though that's partly because some strong generic ballot polls entered this AM for Democrats," Silver posted to X Wednesday morning. The fake polls in question came from Wedgewood Polling, a group that revealed on Tuesday that it had fabricated most of its polls. Newsweek has corrected and retracted stories that included data from Wedgewood Polls.
Silver said Wedgewood had been permanently banned from his aggregations moving forward, noting that the removal of the polls, which tended to be roughly 1 point more favorable to Democrats, had altered numbers in favor of Republicans in some cases. The most notable change was the Michigan Senate race, as previously noted. Some other races saw a slight dip compared to Tuesday, including Republican Susan Collins versus Democrat Troy Jackson in Maine, who both saw their support dip slightly by point-1 and point-2 percent.
The overall generic ballot average was largely unchanged, with Democrats falling from 51.7 percent Tuesday to 51.5 percent Wednesday, and Republicans going from 42 percent to 41.9 percent. Overall, between 15 and 17 polls fabricated by Wedgewood had been cited by various sites, before being removed Wednesday. "Previously, Wedgewood responded to inquiries from multiple polling aggregators and answered questions about their identities, methods, and funding, which is why their polls were subsequently aggregated," Silver wrote on his site Wednesday.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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